Information distribution systems for a team working on a common mission are known. For example, mission rooms for command and control missions are known. In many situations, however, these information distribution systems do not readily discriminate and differentiate information to be provided to different locations of the room according to the particular information needs and/or security level of the individuals in team.
In a typical environment, many individuals are seated in a common area, and have common or overlapping visual lines of sight to individual or common information displays (such as CRTs, LCDs, LEDs, plasma displays, or other displays as are used to provide visually to a user). For example, air traffic or mission controllers may be seated in a room, with individual controllers having a designated information display. One or more common displays may be positioned above the individuals within the line of sight to several individuals. With such arrangement, many or all individuals in the environment may have access to the information displayed on the individual or common displays. Consequently, access to the environment must be limited to a particular control group if information is intended to be restricted.
Further, it often occurs that individuals accessing controlled information may have different levels of access. In a conventional environment, the level of information displayed in the environment cannot exceed that of the lowest level among those of the group having access to the environment. If individuals with a higher level wish to access a higher level of information than permitted to be seen by others in the environment, they often must move to separate environment, such as a smaller room, that provides the more limited level of information.
There are many environments in which controlled access to information is desirable. In addition to defense and air control environments, they may include, for example, hospitals and clinics, where patient registration may retrieve confidential information of patients. It would be desirable in such environments to ensure that such confidential information may not be readily seen by other patients, and is restricted to medical staff having a need to access such information.